Six Bills (Wilhelmina Carson Novels)

Billie Jo Steam has been languishing for thirty years in prison for the 1972 murder of her husband, lead singer of a local rock band. Her son Harris is determined to prove her innocence, but powerful and mysterious obstacles stand in his way. If only the other members of the band Six Bills would spill a long-kept secret about Trey Steam's death...

When Wilhelmina Carson, a no-nonsense United States District Court Judge, is presented with the facts of the case she is convinced that Billie Jo Steam is innocent. Determined to right the wrongs of a justice system in which she believes. Willa pulls out all the stops, including the use of genetic testing and her most distinguished political connections, to give Billie Jo back her family and her freedom. But there isn't much time to celebrate...

Only days after Billie Jo is finally exonerated, another tragedy strikes the Steam family and the Tampa police think Harris is the culprit. Now Willa is entangled in a messy case for which she feels partly responsible, and it is up to her to clear Harris Steam's name and solve two murders! To do so, she must make use of modern DNA technology while digging deep into the Woodstock days of the victims' past. At the top of her list of suspects are the former members of the local band Six Bills; young musicians who were so enmeshed that "they had no idea where one of them ended and the other began." The deeper Willa delves into this timeworn case and the complex relationships that surround it, the more she realizes that there are still many people in Tampa-from pillars of the community, to old hippies, to friends and co-workers-who will do whatever it takes to keep the past buried.